Chapter 45: The Wolf Tide and the Crimson Stand
Ash watches towards the area where the loud hum originates, with sweat on his face, and he sees a big army of wolf-like monsters running in the direction of him or the place where the crack in the golden barrier can be located. He thinks, "This fight is really going to be long and very dreadful. The number of army of wolves is very big. I just can hope we can win the fight without casualty."
After, he silently tries to see their status window.
A system window pops up before Ash.
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Name: Wild Wolf
Grade: Low-Grade Beast
Level: 0
Quantity: 98
Description: A wild wolf with oversized and sharp fangs. It can see in night, generally lives in pack, very aggressive and brutal to their prey and enemy, likes to fight with help of their pack and overwhelm their enemy with number.
Weakness: Weak to fire and blunt and sharp attacks.
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Name: Wild Wolf
Grade: Low-Grade Beast
Level: 1
Quantity: 2
Description: A wild wolf with oversized and sharp fangs. It can see in night, generally lives in pack, very aggressive and brutal to their prey and enemy, likes to fight with help of their pack and overwhelm their enemy with number.
Weakness: Weak to fire and blunt and sharp attacks.
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After seeing the system windows of the wild wolves, he casually observes the features of the monsters and sees these monsters have red eyes and dark blue fur on their body, and from the speed of the monsters, Ash can find they are going to fight very soon.
He holds his flame sword and orders the soldiers to form a circle formation to not allow any wild wolf to cross Nexus City from the crack in the golden barrier.
A few seconds of silence, he can see the wild wolves almost come near the formation. With expecting eyes, he wants to see some wild wolves die in the pit trap.
Suddenly, he hears the silent sound of some wild wolves falling in the pit trap. With sweat on his face, clenching his left hand, he takes his flame sword. Behind him is the crack in the golden barrier. Ram takes position near Ash for helping against the wild wolf horde.
Ash sees, in a moment, two level 1 wild wolves attack him with their fangs, and other wild wolves are running in the direction of Ash. He uses his flame sword and attacks the first wild wolf and uses fireball against the second wild wolf. Suddenly, he sees Ram attack two wild wolves after his attack instantly. And other soldiers are defending him and attacking wild wolves with their weapons, but ten level 0 reach Ash's area of defense, so the fight with him and 12 wild wolves is going fierce.
Minutes pass.
Ash pours his mana into his flame sword and directly uses three fireballs simultaneously to block other wild wolves and slashes one level 1 wild wolf's neck. The wild wolf's head is out of the body. In an instant, Ash again attacks another wild wolf with his flame sword, but he only injures the wild wolf. He counterattacks the wolf with his fireball. Again, he uses two fireballs against another wolf. After, he pours mana into his flame sword and slashes the level 1 wild wolf instantly with swift speed. The wolf's body is half cut. Again, he takes a breath of relief while defending himself from the wild wolf's attack.
He thinks, "Two level 2 wild wolves were killed. Rest should be easily killed." He swiftly attacks a nearby wild wolf with the flame sword, but his attack misses. Then he uses fireball attack on the wild wolf. After, he aims at the neck of the monster, slashes the wild wolf. A second later, the wild wolf trembles its body and dies.
Minutes pass. With Ash's fireball and sword, 5 more wild wolves die. Only 4 wild wolves remain. He curiously sees how others are doing. He feels surprise after seeing what others are doing, but he continues to fight the monster. He pours mana into his flame sword, and the sword shows shining bloody red color. He attacks two nearby wild wolves one by one, and both bodies split in half. Again, he slashes a nearby wild wolf with his flame sword in its neck. The wolf dies instantly. Eventually, he kills the last wild wolf easily.
He sees near Ram; various bodies of wild wolves are fallen. Some bodies are split from body parts of monsters and others die because of neck injury or heavy blood loss. He thinks, "In Ram's hand almost 50 wild wolves have fallen. One level difference in power is really heaven and earth. And near Evan and Robin, almost 20 wild wolves die and they are fighting with 10 wild wolves. And soldiers are fighting with one wild wolf each , others 10 maybe die or trap in pit trap."
He decides to join the fight of soldiers for killing level 0 wild wolves. For this battle, he uses swift attacks on the back of wild wolves. A few minutes of attack on the back of wild wolves, he kills 5 wild wolves because most of these monsters are fighting with level 0 soldiers, so his attack is effective. After, he sees most free soldiers are joining other soldiers to attack level 0 wild wolves.
He sees two level 0 soldiers are easily dealing with wild wolves, so he lets the soldiers fight to increase their instinct in the battle. After, he focuses on Robin and Evan. He sees they almost kill the wild wolves with Ram's help, so he feels relief on his shoulder.
Minutes pass.
All the wild wolves are dead. Ash and others are collecting mana stones from the bodies of wild wolves. Slowly and steadily, he is collecting mana stones, and the smell of blood almost makes him vomit. But after some consideration,
he buries the dead bodies of wild wolves instantly after taking their mana stones from their bodies.
Ash and others take all the mana stones from wild wolves' bodies. Then he sees many are injured in the fight, so he orders the injured soldiers to drink some healing water from the healing pond. He thinks, "I also got some injury in a fight with monsters. Why not I also check the efficiency of healing water?"
He orders every injured to follow him in the Nexus Garden and see the healing water's efficiency after drinking it. So, all follow him in standard military discipline.
Minutes later,
In Nexus City's garden,
he sees the healing pond and finds enough water to drink by injured population by their small hands.
He thinks, "Healing water generation is slow and maybe it will not be enough for the city's healing requirement after growth in city population and soldiers.
I must have more healing options in the Nexus City. For now, I can only buy some healing objects from market-building, but white-grade tools have very high price and their appearance is even very rare. It feels impossible for getting medical white-grade tools from market building. Even I not see any high-grade medical tool in the market building for buying."
He curiously tries to see the status of healing pond's water and pure stone.
A window pops up in front of Ash.
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Name: Water (Item - Resource)
Requirement: Drink it for getting better and faster healing of your injury, put into area where fish live to increase reproduction of fish.
Status: Good
Ability: It has good healing effect and improves fish reproduction.
Description: Valuable for healing and fish farming.
Grade: Low-grade
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Name: Pure Stone (Item - Resource)
Requirement: Use in any area, but needs soil and mana around
Quantity: 1
Status: Good
Ability: Produces water by absorbing mana. Water has good healing effect and improves fish reproduction.
Description: Valuable for healing and fish farming.
Grade: White
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After seeing the status, he thinks, "If I have more of these pure stones, maybe I can start the business of fish farming and minor healing medicine. Now I can understand this water only increases speed of healing for minor injury, so minor injury be no problem for the Nexus City. But injuries that take more time on healing create problem. So, I can only use healing pill on that situation. At least now I can save some mana points on minor injury. If I am lucky in near future, maybe I get better treasure on healing. For now, I only follow what I can do for my people."
Ash allows others to drink some water from healing pond, and he also drinks some water from healing pond because in a battle he also gets some minor injury many times. But he does not dare to use healing pill on that injury because of cost-performance issue. But having this water gives some relief on this issue.
He can feel in his body, minor injury is starting to heal, and his body is demanding more mana for quick healing. So, he dismisses everyone and gives them advice to go refine their mana in magic pond. He goes to the altar for mana refining to increase his level quickly and provide more mana that body is demanding for quick healing.
Minutes pass.
In the altar room of Nexus City, Ash is refining his mana diligently. All minor injuries from Ash's body are cured. His whole body is as smooth as jade. Then he sees from the gate of the altar room, Robin is coming towards altar room. He thinks, "Why is Robin coming? All refugee work can be handled by him without reporting to me."
He curiously looks towards Robin with a smile on his face, and Robin bows his head near altar room and asks permission for reporting. He gives his permission and hears what Robin is saying.
"My lord, today 3 new refugees join the Nexus City, and one extra person comes that is saying he wants to meet the city owner because he is representative of All Human Alliance and wants to talk to you about joining All Human Alliance," Robin says with complication on his face.
Few minutes of silence. Ash asks Robin with normal look, "Do you know anything about All Human Alliance?"
"No, my lord. I don't have any interaction with any sensitive information in my previous altar city," Robin says with apologetic gaze.
"Okay, no problem," Ash says with normal tone.
Few minutes of silence. He thinks, "What does this envoy from All Human Alliance want from me? How does All Human Alliance locate the location of Nexus City? Whatever, I will get to know about this from envoy. If he really is serious about me joining this alliance. What if he sees the relic location? From what I can realize, he most probably knows about location of relic. Whatever, I see what he wants from me, then I can think what should be most appropriate reaction I should give the envoy."